Essays

I drink vinegar. And no, that is not why I always look this way. That’s my natural appearance, being from New Jersey and all. (A former girlfriend says this is so.) Anyway, it’s not that I enjoy vinegar, which I do, when sprinkled on salads and potatoes and fish. I drink the stuff because it is healthy. Type in the words, Drinking Vinegar into a search engine and see what you get. Claims range from losing weight and clearing up acne to controlling allergies and making cucumbers taste better. There are even stories of millennia-old civilizations quaffing the stuff, much as many ancients gnawed garlic. For their health!

The reason I mention this little factoid about my personal intake of acetic acid, is that my friend George – I’ll call him Jorge, to avoid embarrassing him – very enthusiastically showed me a catalogue recently, touting the benefits of all sorts of pills, capsules, creams and books, ‘GUARANTEED’ to boost one’s health, while simultaneously boosting the wallet contents of the catalogue’s owners. Jorge’s – that’s George – big discovery was Vinegar Capsules. One hundred micro containers of ‘dried vinegar’ for the ridiculously low price of $12.99, plus shipping and handling. He asked me to come in with him on the deal, “cause if we buy several bottles, the price goes down to just $12.49 each!” The man can smell a bargain three blocks away.

Now then, Jorge is really smart guy, a military vet, big hearted, with a great family, and a great reputation with everyone. Except his family. When I asked his wife – I’ll call her AJ, so as not use her real name of Leticia – what did his family know that the community did not, she said nothing. She simply hurled the catalogues in my general direction. Yes, plural. Catalogues, hawking every conceivable pseudo- faux- and semi-nutrient product known to telemarketers worldwide. Listed within the tear-stained pages – Jorge gets very emotional when browsing – are a virtual cornucopia of earthly delights, in the form of cardboard-tasting supplements: Oatmeal extract; pear-guava tincture; and, my personal favorite, rhubarb-flavored anti-cavity rinse, guaranteed all natural, which was a relief, because if there is one thing I will not stand for, it is artificially-flavored rhubarb rinse. Then there are the vinegar capsules, which, if someone knew nothing about food, or science or how to breathe, they would buy tons of this stuff. That is how good the writing is!

So, I sat down and read these little gems at my friends’ kitchen table, while Jorge salivated over the newest edition of Eat Well, Live Right!, which guarantees free shipping with proof that you graduated grade school. I suppose my question was inevitable, but it broke the tension nonetheless. “Why don’t you just buy a bottle of vinegar?” I asked. “The store brand costs less than half a buck.” You would have thought I had just called his mother a salad maker. “Drinking vinegar isn’t healthy!”, was the best he could come up with. But he did add, “And besides, it tastes terrible!” And there’s the rub, the taste. Among other reasons we, as a people, do not enjoy the most robust health is that we, as a moronic people, believe claims that we have no time to prepare food and eat well. And taste, don’t forget taste. Products spring up like fried chicken fingers at a southern barn dance, touting better taste, no taste, different taste. What’s wrong with the taste of broccoli? It’s supposed to be reminiscent of a wet tree trunk, oak, I think. What do broccoli pills have that real live broccoli doesn’t? I’ll tell you what they have: a shipping and handling cost, Styrofoam packing material, and a coupon for more broccoli pills. Now, if supermarkets and green grocers were smart, they would immediately start offering these things with the real item. Heck you can already get plastic bags and rubber bands on many items, for free! Why not bubble wrap, too?

I enjoy most veggies and fruits. (I do not enjoy cauliflower, and I have no idea what mung beans are.) And I have no need for supplements, even the reputable ones. When they are in season, I stuff my face with grapefruit, and other citrus, until I have more juice running down my chin than Tropicana has trees in Florida. If an apple a day keeps… yeah, you know, then I should not have to see a physician until two years after I pass away. I have no idea what that means, but you get the idea, right? Okay, the point is, I eat a lot of produce, drink plenty of water, and try my best to include tomatoes, dark chocolate, red wine, mushrooms and avocados in my diet. And vinegar. Thus, I need no pills to further my already pink and healthy complexion. However…

Jorge rightfully points out that not everyone is as eclectic as am I, smugness aside. True. My mother was curious about life, and all the things it contains, including food and its preparation. Thus, when we were young, my siblings were introduced to Brussels sprouts, acorn squash and lima beans. There was always fruit in the house, and that does not refer to our neighbor, Mr. Scroggins. Mom would sliced apples, bananas and pears for the wee ones, and we were just as happy as could be. Until we discovered chocolate, and its low melting point, which allowed youngsters to imitate Al Jolson and Ben Vereen, though not very convincingly. Still, fruit and veggies were important staples for me then, and now. Over the years, I have heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth when people will say, “It’s slimy!” (Okra); “It’s stinky!” (Cauliflower); “It has pits!” (Take your pick.) My retort is always the same: “It’s supposed to smell/look/contain… whatever!” Besides, if you don’t fancy cherries, eat melon. But for the love of escarole, don’t believe that just popping pills will cure your dandruff, heal your broken heart and help you win the Master’s, especially when you’ve never golfed a day in your life. Please, spare us.

Kidding aside, I find solace in my cooking. Even making a salad is cathartic. I peel garlic, slice carrots and mix my own dressing, from scratch. (Disclaimer: I have cooked professionally, and written about food. Also, I have gorged myself on bad pizza, fast food-joint sack lunches, and artificially-flavored ice pops. So there…) I know what’s good and what’s good for me. I live near several, high-end supermarkets, and I try to shop several times a week for fresh produce. Many stores offer discount racks of slightly bruised, over-ripe bargains, which I greedily snap up. Now then, you may not want to bite into a squishy persimmon, or a caved-in kumquat, but I don’t eat these things. I juice ‘em! That’s right, I own a juicer, a little counter-top item that spins faster than a White House press secretary, extracting marvelous liquid gold from fruits and vegetables galore. And it does not discriminate against older, unappealing produce. I also have a crock pot. (Second disclaimer: I have several crock pots. But that is a story for another day.) Into my crock pots go all manner of older onions, senile scallions and prickly potatoes. The end result is just about the best food on this planet. Why? ‘cause I made it, fresh, all natural and cheap.

Just the other day, I visited my local Italian deli, Mortadella’s. There, behind the glass protecting the defenseless capicolla and pesto-laden pasta from voracious aisle-surfers, was a dish of Oven Roasted Vegetables with Olive Oil, only $5.99 per pound. Luisa, that’s her real name, her fake one is Genevieve, caught me eyeing the bowl, piled high with lubricated chunks of colorful, health-inducing plant matter. When she offered me a sample, I rightfully declined. It just wouldn’t be right. Why would I spend more money than was necessary, when I could create my own bowl of languid, slowly-cooked veggies, flavored to my taste? I would just be leading her on. So I left the shop. (But not before buying a loaf of semolina bread, and a few of those wonderful stuffed hot peppers…)

At Farmer Joe’s, the local purveyor of all things with dirt on them, fresh from the field, I bought scads of greens, oranges, whites, more greens, a yellow, and couple of dark purples. Seeing me filling up my baggie with heads of garlic, Joe asked if I was trying to keep both vampires and people away from me. “Yes!” I happily replied, and stuffed two more heads into my already bulging sack. I stopped by the local grocery warehouse, where you can buy everything in bulk, except fiber, which comes in small boxes. I found the olive oil aisle, which is easier to say than to write. Extra virgin, fist cold pressing, light and lite, which is lite light. I could not decide, so I did the most logical – and heart-warming thing to a supermarket manager: I bought several.

Arriving home, I unpacked gingerly, so as to not damage the already fragile contents of my larder, and set about to cook, with an eye toward a sensual, or sensuous – I can never get those two straight – repast. (In the movie Animal House, Mrs. Wormer, the dean’s wife, tells Otter, played by Tim Matheson, “Vegetables are sensual, people are sensuous.”) Let’s just say, tasty, and leave it at that. I could not decide on soup or stew, so I made a mélange, something I learned from the Odd Couple sitcom of the 1970s. I know it means some sort of jumble, but others than that, what I call my food is of no consequence. How it tastes, and its health benefits, are.

I cut the broccoli, diced the onions, and pretty much chopped myself into a frenzy. I oiled my big, heavy cast ion skillet and sautéed away, then finished it all in the oven. I sliced a big, fat Italian roll, slathered on the olive oil and waited for the heat to transform my purchases into gustatory gold. And it was worth the wait. Removing the pan from the electric furnace, the aroma wafted throughout my apartment building, with the result that I was soon joined by the building manager, who lives two buildings down, and “Just wanted to make sure I was alright, and by the way, what’s cooking?” I sliced open another roll, stuffed that one, too, with garden-fresh goodness, and sat down to enjoy, with my friend.

He inquired as to what I was drinking, and I told him, water tinged with cider vinegar. “Vinegar!” he exclaimed. “You don’t drink vinegar! Wait here, I’ll run back to my apartment and get you some of my vinegar pills!”